Wednesday, 21st of October 2009 at 07:59:47 AMby Tom LeBlanc
As I was researching some technical materials to help my friend pass an FCC test one of the authors told me, “Anyone can write a book.” At first, I didn’t believe him. Then, I embraced the belief and started to write a book. Boy, was it ever overwhelming! It’s a huge project. Then I remembered something…..
When the kids were young we often took trips to see the grandparents. We lived near Salem, Oregon and they lived about 12 hours away near Santa Cruz, California. This was a very long and boring trip… even an “overwhelming” trip for the little ones. They asked numerous times “Are we there yet?” and “When are we gonna be there?” This became very annoying until I thought of an answer for them…..
I started saying… “We are not going to Santa Cruz. We are going to Albany (a 30 minute drive.) Now, that was manageable. Then, in Albany we made a stop for refreshments and a walk. SO, we broke down the trip into small bite-sized trips that were doable. And with each destination along the way we rewarded ourselves in some way. This made the trip more enjoyable for everyone.
In the same way, writing a book is a daunting task. Oh sure, to write a book you must first take a look at the overall “Big Picture” and rough out a basic plan… but then… If you just focus on writing one chapter at a time or maybe even one section of a chapter at at time you will eventually be able to fit them all together and have a finished product. It worked for me.
So therefore, “Never try to write a book. It’s overwhelming. Instead… just write a chapter… then another… and another… then put them all together. Any difficult project can done by taking small steps.”
But, if you really want to write a book refer to my article “Anyone Can Write a Book” and you will discover that if I can do it So Can You!
Now, negotiating with publishers is the topic of another post. If anyone is interested I can share some tips on how I accomplished it.
